


please wait here, your future self will meet you shortly

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Generation Kill Week, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-23 19:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11996658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: It's 1996 and the fact that there's only one bed in this motel room is the least of Brad's problems.





	please wait here, your future self will meet you shortly

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks and apologies to everyone else who's already done this idea but better.

_All of my daydream are disasters / she's the one I think I love,_  
_Rivers burn and then run backwards / for her, that's enough._  
(Uncle Tupelo, 'New Madrid')

  


The hotel room is like any other Brad's been in the last few years since he got recruited into this unit; pale walls that might have been gray (or even blue) once upon a time, carpeting definitely on the ratty side, the same anonymous furniture that clutters every hotel in this price range. Brad hardly notices any of it any more - all he's looking for is the landline. As public pay phones have phased out, they've had to move to hotels and motels and motor inns, just for the connection. Whoever invented this mode of time travel, it probably seemed cutting edge at the time, and no one ever thought that piggybacking on Ma Bell would go out of style.

Brad's not kidding himself that unless the guys back at R&D can come up with something soon, they're going to lose almost all ability to go back and forth. 

Right now, though, he's got other problems: the college student asleep in the bed that Brad's perched on the edge of. This isn't the first time Brad's gone back for someone he knows, but this is the strangest. He'd know this man anywhere, but that first sight of Fick's face, young and smooth instead of bearded and tanned gold, with no laugh lines around his mouth or crow's feet by his eyes, had caused Brad to feel like he's been scraped raw in an instant. 

"Do you know me?" he asked, because it was important.

Fick's hands tightened momentarily on his bike, like he was trying to decide if he could use it as a weapon, but then relaxed. "You look familiar," he allowed. "We've met before? I'm sorry I can't place it."

There's always the question of whether or not the technology will work correctly. The Fick in Brad's current time knows him, and if the loop works the way it should, there should be an echo of that somewhere in the past. Brad sat through the classes, but he doesn't care so much about how the time travel works as much as he cares that it just _works_.

"We will meet, Sir. Almost five years from now." Brad paused, then showed Fick his identification cards. "It's important."

Fick looked at him a moment longer, his gaze moving slowly over Brad's face. Brad didn't move, didn't blink, until Fick said, "What do... you need something from me - now?"

"I need you to come with me."

"Where?"

"Hawthorne, California, September 2016."

Fick seemed to pale. "Excuse me?"

"I can explain, but not while we're standing here," Brad said. He showed Fick the timer on his watch. "We're on a schedule now, and we need to make it to Cleveland before midnight."

" _Ohio_?" Fick was definitely paler now. "Classes... I..."

"I'm not lying to you, Sir, this is important," Brad said, looking Fick in the eye. "I will explain it to you on the way. If we get there and you change your mind, I will buy you a plane ticket back here. All right? And I will let you hold on to my IDs and wallet the whole way, if it makes you feel more secure in this."

Fick held his gaze another few seconds. "Okay. But I need to put my bike away first, and get some things, if we're taking a fucking road trip to California."

Brad did not breathe a sigh of relief, but he certainly felt like he should. "We have half an hour to get on the interstate."

"Understood." 

In the hotel room, the phone rings, and Fick stirs as Brad lifts the handset. "Colbert."

"Sending next coordinates," the computer voice says, then there's a jumble of electronic beeping and the display on Brad's watch lights up as the new information is processed. "Are you on schedule?" the computer voice asks.

Fick is awake now, looking at Brad. "We are on schedule," Brad says.

"Confirm disconnect."

Brad looks at his watch. It's updated. "Confirm."

There's another string of electronic noises, then a dial tone. He replaces the handset. "Was that someone calling from the future?" Fick asks.

"That was the future itself, Sir."

"Stop that." Fick pushes himself up on his elbows. "My first name's Nate, you have to know that."

This lie is easy because he looks so young, but it's so much easier for Brad to compartmentalize when he can call Nate by his last name. "Just not used to calling you that - Nate."

"Well, do it anyway," Nate grumbles. He turns in the bed, scrunching the pillow up higher beneath his head. "You explained it all, and I slept on it, and I just heard - all of that - but I'm still..." 

He trails off, and Brad finishes, "You're still not sure you believe everything I've told you."

"You have to admit it's like a Philip Dick novel or something." Nate's gaze narrows. "Do you need to sleep?"

"I'm not a _robot_ from the future," Brad insists. "Okay, look - I was hoping I wouldn't have to show you this, but maybe it will ease your mind." 

He gets his wallet from the nightstand and takes the folded photograph from the inner pocket he keeps it in. Unfolding it, he says, "I trust you will recognize the two of us. And your signature."

Nate sits up again to look at the creased photo. He doesn't say anything for a while, but Brad watches him trace a finger over the paper. "That's definitely my signature... there's you... this is five years from now?"

"Almost six."

"I look so much older."

"War will do that to a man," Brad replies. "We should get some sleep, there's another long drive ahead of us tomorrow and I don't know about you, but I'm shit at sleeping in a sedan like that."

"You are really tall," Nate murmurs absently, still looking at the picture of their platoon in Iraq. He doesn't seem at all surprised that this is in his future, and Brad figures he's already thinking about the Corps, and that his chemistry classes are more difficult than he anticipated.

Nate hands the photo back, and Brad replaces it carefully in his wallet. "You carry it with you?" Nate asks, voice quiet. 

"Mm-hmm." He gets up to strip off his outer layer of clothes so he can sleep. There's only one bed, but he doesn't care. "Get some shuteye, Nate, all right?"

Nate turns over, repositioning the pillow. The sheet is tangled around his waist. As with most cheap motels, the room is warm and almost sticky. Brad leaves his socks on, because he'd rather not step on the floor. "Got enough room?" Nate asks, the words muffled.

"I'm fine." Brad goes into the small bathroom to swish some generic Listerine around his mouth and wipe the day's sweat from his face, then lies down on the bed, not bothering with the sheet. He can feel Nate breathing. This shouldn't feel strange; Brad's bunked with countless other people due to lack of space, or lack of heat. This Nate has no idea what he'll be to Brad in the future besides a fellow Marine.

In California in 2016 there's a manufacturing plant that they'll have to time-jump into. Word is that the machines being made there are controlled by software brought back from Brad's timeline, software created by Nate's company, from an idea Nate had first his sophomore year at Dartmouth. An idea he had a month ago. 

"Are you confident in this mission?" Brad asked Patterson, gesturing to the whiteboard on which everything they had was mapped out.

"No," Patterson replied. He rubbed a hand over his face. "But I have confidence in you."

Brad looked at the photograph of Fick taped to the board. "That means nothing and you know it means nothing."

"It's not about whether or not he can break the software, Colbert." 

"You're betting on my past with him but sending me to a time when he hasn't even met me yet," Brad replied, pushing down the wave of hurt that comes with even saying it. 

Patterson drummed his fingers once on the tabletop, and pointed at Brad. A smile crossed his tired face. "That's exactly what I'm betting on."

 _That's not how it works_ , Brad thinks now, fifteen hours into this mission. He feels Nate turn over again next to him, and a hand hits his shoulder, then slides off. He does his best not to notice how Nate even smells the same, his choice in antiperspirants clearly something that doesn't change, but it's hard to forget about once he realizes it. _You always did like a challenge_ , he hears his mother's voice repeating, just like she said when he told her his new assignment was nearly as dangerous as his old one. 

Going into the past means there's always a chance he won't get back to the present. It scares him every time he climbs into the pod. 

"Brad?" Nate interrupts his thoughts, and Brad's nearly grateful for it - thinking about all the things that could go wrong with a mission is not a path he cares to get stuck on. "Shouldn't you get some sleep, too?"

"I should."

"Then why are you staring at the ceiling like that?"

Brad looks over at him, and it's a bad move. Nate's watching him, and for as smooth and unblemished as his face is, his gaze is the same. The way he's looking at Brad is no different than the way he'll look at Brad in the future, through deployments, through their year of denial, through the next two years of fucking on any available surface whenever they managed to see each other, through Nate asking quietly if he'd like to get married. 

Brad said no. Nate hadn't looked at him again.

Patterson didn't have a fucking clue what he was sending Brad into. "I'm fine," he says.

Nate's hand settles so lightly on his bicep that Brad barely feels it, but it still burns like a brand. "Why are you looking at me like you know every possible thing there is to know about me, right down to my soul?"

Brad shakes his head and turns away. 

" _Brad_."

"I've told you more than authorized already." 

There's a long pause, then the bed shifts as though Nate's sitting up. "You're really not going to tell me anything else?"

Brad takes a deep breath. "Not tonight, so stop asking. I'll sleep on the floor if you want me to."

The bed shifts again, and Nate feels like he's moved further away. "No. I'll leave you alone."

Brad wraps his arms around himself and closes his eyes, but sleep is a long time coming.

  


Nate is not in the bed when Brad wakes up with a start, and for a second he thinks Nate's ditched, but then he hears, "I'm over here," and turns over to see Nate already dressed and sitting at the small table in front of the window. In the early morning light, he looks more like an outline of himself. He's drinking from a styrofoam cup, and there's another one waiting on the table. "Brought you a coffee."

"Thanks." Brad sits up and presses his hands hard against his face for a second. When he feels more like normal, he checks his watch. They're still on schedule. 

"You sleep alright?"

"Fine." He goes into the bathroom to wash up a little, using the complimentary toiletries - there's no room in the pod for luggage - before putting his clothes on again. "We'll have to fuel up before we get on the turnpike, if you want to grab supplies then."

"There's a breakfast bar in the motel's main office for another hour," Nate says, his voice mild. "Toast, cold cereal. Peanut butter."

Brad re-laces his boots. "I'll get a few protein bars at the gas station."

Nate doesn't speak to him again until they've crossed into Illinois, his face turned away towards the passenger window. Brad's slowed to merge onto the next interstate they need to take, slightly annoyed that they've managed to locate rush hour. "Is there really going to be another Iraq war?" Nate asks.

"You don't sound surprised at the possibility."

"I'm not."

Brad adjusts his gas station sunglasses. "There's an attack that precipitates things, but you have to understand, I can't give you those details."

"I understand." 

Brad nudges the car a few more feet, positioning them to get between a silver Audi and a beat-up pickup truck. Somehow, Nate's short-spoken acceptance of Brad's refusal to tell him anything more is worse than any questions. And already, Brad is starting to relax in his presence, and that's - Brad doesn't need that. He needs to get them to California.

"You said 2016," Nate says suddenly, another hour in.

"Yes."

"You're bringing me into the future?"

"Yes," Brad repeats. He glances over at Nate and sees the expression on his face. "Oh, you think there's some - some paradox? There's not."

"Even if I meet my future self?"

By September of 2016, Nate's already been at the company three years, and Brad hasn't seen him in two. "That is really fucking unlikely," he manages to say, and feels dangerously unstable even thinking about both of them in the same room. 

"Am I dead?"

Only Brad's quick reflexes and the fact that his foot was already on the brake pedal save them from smashing into the back of the car in front of them. "No, fuck no. You are very much alive. And you have to stop asking me questions, Nate, _please_."

"Fine." Nate leans his seat back. "I'm going to close my eyes for a while. Wake me up when you want to switch off."

"Affirmative," Brad murmurs. 

He wakes Nate in Iowa City with instructions to drive to Omaha, then gets into the back seat and pretends to sleep for a while. Instead, he runs various mission scenarios in his head: complete success, which includes returning Nate to Dartmouth none the wiser about his future with Brad; near complete success, in which they reprogram the machines entirely and no one knows until 2021 but this Nate finds out something he shouldn't; and failure, in which the apocalypse still comes. 

There are a vast number of outcomes between success and failure, but in Brad's mind they're all some variation on this past Nate meeting current Nate, and Brad possibly ending up dead.

Right now, Brad's not going to bet on complete success. That relies too much on Nate not asking another single question, and he's too smart for that. Brad should have refused this mission. 

"What are you thinking about?" Nate asks, and Brad nearly kicks his foot against the door in surprise.

"Completing the mission."

There's the feeling of the car slowing, then turning. "I'm stopping for gas, and some water. You want to stretch your legs?"

"Not a bad idea." Brad sits up carefully, and watches a few storefronts go past before Nate pulls into a Mobil. "I could do with something to drink."

There's a small restaurant attached, and Nate points. "We could get actual food - it is lunch, and I'm starving."

They're ahead of schedule, which means Nate's got a lead foot. Brad nods. 

Nate doesn't ask any more unwanted questions while they eat, but he does try to pick Brad's brain about what the Corps' boot camp is like. That's information Brad doesn't mind sharing, although he warns Nate that things have probably changed somewhat, and OCS isn't the same as recruit training. "You'll probably still get screamed at, though."

"Thought that was a given." Nate pushes the last few potato chip crumbs around on his plate, then leans back in the booth. "What did you say your specialty was?"

"Deep-sea diving."

"I hate being underwater."

Brad grins. "You'll get over that quick. Are you done here? We should go. I can drive."

"No, it's still my turn," Nate says, and walks off with the keys, leaving Brad to pay their bill.

  


They end up not stopping until Lexington, another Super 8 just off the interstate. Brad buys them some clothes at the travel center next door, then calls in while Nate takes a shower. They'd gotten another one-bed room. Brad figures he can sleep on the floor. He bought a sleeping bag at the travel center as well.

He pushes the button on his watch, and ten seconds later, the phone rings. "You are ahead of schedule," the future voice says. "You must arrive on-site no earlier than 10pm, Pacific Standard Time, on Friday the 13th, 1996. At your current rate of travel, you will arrive just before 2am on that date."

"Then I'll get a good day's sleep, won't I?" Brad asks dryly, and hears a laugh from the bathroom. He twists around, and sees Nate standing there, in nothing but a towel. "Oh, that's not fucking fair," Brad says before his frontal lobe can stop his mouth.

"Repeat your inquiry," the future voice says, and Brad snaps, "No inquiry. Confirm disconnect."

He barely waits for the computer to acknowledge before he drops the phone back into the cradle and says, "Please put some clothes on."

"Why? Does this bother you?" Nate pulls a comb through his hair - it's longer than Brad is used to - and the towel slips another inch. 

"No." 

"The expression on your face indicates otherwise," Nate says sharply. " _Every time you look at me._ "

Brad turns away without answering so Nate can't see the flush that's heating his face. "We can stop earlier tomorrow, we're ahead of schedule."

"Where are we supposed to be?"

"Lincoln, at the furthest." The bed dips behind Brad and there's the sudden heat of Nate's body. "Don't!"

Nate's hand lands on his shoulder and Brad moves without thinking, grabbing Nate's wrist and twisting away from him, leaving Nate on his back on the bed. "I said don't," Brad hisses.

"You look at me and you see _him_ ," Nate says, not attempting to struggle, looking up at Brad. With his free hand, Nate undoes the towel, and curls his fingers around his stiffening cock. "I was going to do this in the shower, but then I thought... maybe you wanted to watch? If I had to guess, I would say you haven't seen this in a while."

Brad lets go of his wrist and backs up. "This was easier when you asked fewer questions," he mutters. "I don't care if you jack it in our bed, but I'm not going to stand here while you do."

"You want to," Nate sighs, hand moving slowly on his dick. 

Brad forces himself to look up, above the bed, at the terrible reproduction artwork there. "It doesn't matter what I want. When we're done, I'm going back to 2017, and you're going back to 1996, and I won't see either of you again."

Nate sits up abruptly. "We're not together in the future? I thought for sure that was why you were being so fucking weird."

This shitty hotel room has a desk with a chair, and Brad sinks into it, not looking at the tanned, naked college version of his ex. "I haven't seen you in two years."

" _And?_ "

"To put it mildly, you're sort of evil now." Brad rubs the spot between his eyes, hoping that will stall the headache.

Nate wraps the towel around his waist again. He doesn't say anything, and when Brad glances at him, he can see Nate's got that look on his face like he's puzzling everything out. "We're going to California in the future so that I can help you fix something so it doesn't cause an apocalypse even further in the future," he says, almost to himself. "I didn't question that part too much, since I decided to trust whatever it was in me that knew I knew you, but - do _I_ cause the world to end?"

"You run the company that writes the software that triggers sentience in artificial intelligence in 2021," Brad murmurs. 

"That -"

"My superiors decided if we could get to you _now_ , you might - choose a different path."

"That's the plot of fucking _Terminator_ , Brad."

"Doesn't make it any less true," Brad says. "There was..." he exhales, because he really didn't want to tell Nate this part, "a time when you could have been happy, had a life outside of the company, and it was me who ruined that. And that's why I got this assignment, instead of one of the four other guys from our old unit who also time-travel for a living."

"What do you mean you ruined it," Nate asks, and his voice is a cold, flat line that Brad recognizes from their worse days. Then there's the sound of movement, and suddenly Nate is on his lap, where he really shouldn't fit. "Brad? What happened?"

Brad wants to push him away, but he doesn't. "I miss you every fucking day," he whispers, and leans his forehead against Nate's. "You asked if I wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and I fucked up and I said no, and you left. And I regret it. Every day."

Hands tilt his face up, and Nate's looking at him again. "Why'd you say no?"

Brad shakes his head, or tries to, because Nate's still holding onto him. "I ask myself that question all the time."

"Can you to back to that day and tell yourself not to be such a fucking idiot?"

"I wish." 

Nate doesn't move, doesn't speak, don't seem to even breathe for so long that Brad squeezes his waist. "Nate?"

"We're not going to 2016," Nate says firmly. "We're going to whatever day it was that you broke my heart, and you're going to fix it, and you're also going to tell you or me or whoever not to write that software, and then you're going to be _happy_."

"I can't do that."

"Yes," Nate says, in that tone that allows no arguments. "You can. And as for right now, you're taking me to bed."

"I can't do that," Brad repeats. The words come almost instinctually. He _can't_. 

"Yes." Nate slides off his lap and pulls Brad up by the hooded sweatshirt he's wearing. "You fuck me in the future, right?"

"You're not nineteen in the future," Brad starts to say, but Nate's mouth is on his, and he kisses exactly like Brad remembers, immediately arresting. "...and there _are_ rules, on-mission," Brad gets out, as Nate kisses under his ear. "Such as, don't fuck your target."

Nate unzips the sweatshirt. "I suppose that would make sense if one of us was a woman." He puts one bare foot on the bed and steps up, and in a single move, basically rides Brad down to the mattress. 

Brad grabs Nate's bare hips in an attempt to steady them both faster than he can decide if doing so is a bad choice. "Jesus, Nate." 

Nate grins down at him and the wave of déjà vécu is so strong he feels almost dizzy with it. His mind overlays the Nate ten years from now along the Nate straddling him - it makes him shudder. He lifts a hand and catches Nate's jaw, gently turning his face. "You're you but you're not you and it's really fucking me up," he whispers. 

Nate catches his hand and presses it back on the bed, above Brad's shoulder. The weight of him is different and Brad swallows hard as Nate says, "Then you should close your eyes."

  


In the PacBell closet in Hawthorne, California, one mile from where the factory will stand that builds the machines that end the world, Brad unspools the cord from his watch and plugs it in.

"We've got ten minutes," he says to Nate, who's standing just outside the small space, dressed in his same khakis and a t-shirt from the rest stop in St. George, Utah. It's got a tree on it. 

"I can think of some good things to do with that time," Nate replies, smiling. 

"Do you really want to get caught with your pants down in this office building we just broke into?" Brad asks, but he's already tucking the excess cord into a free corner and carefully setting the watch down. "Keep an eye on the goddamned time."

"Uh-huh." 

"I've created a monster," Brad mutters, as Nate gets down on his knees on the concrete floor. He looks up at Brad as he does, and the expression on his face is so painfully familiar that Brad grabs his shoulder without thinking, fingertips digging into the muscle. He thinks of Nate last night, the non-stop noises he made as Brad worked him open with two fingers and tongue, then fucked him hard enough that the people the next room over banged on the wall and yelled at them to quiet down.

Nate had still been laughing when Brad came, nearly gasping for air. "That's - that's definitely not one to tell the kids," he choked out, as Brad wrapped a hand around his cock. 

"Think I'll leave this singularly embarrassing anecdote in the past," Brad muttered, and that set Nate off again. 

"What is it?" Nate asks now.

Brad shakes his head. "This was all a terrible fucking idea."

Nate squeezes his thigh. "It's too late for that," he says. He unbuckles Brad's belt. "So I'm probably bad at this but I'm doing it anyway."

Brad shudders. "Hurry the fuck up."

Nate's not entirely lacking - he wraps a hand around the base of Brad's cock to cover what his mouth can't, pulls off enough to suck lightly at the head every time Brad thinks he's going to lose it, and just moans when Brad gets a handful of his hair. " _Time_ ," Brad hisses. "Are you going to swallow?"

"What else would I do?" Nate licks slowly up the underside of Brad's cock, looking up at Brad as he does; it's like every sex dream Brad's had for the last five years.

Brad groans, and it echoes in the small space. "Get on with it."

  


The deck of the boat is warm beneath his bare feet, the white-painted wood has been exposed to the sun nearly all morning. Brad feels loose-limbed and nearly weightless despite the itch of salt on his skin, and the gentle rock of the boat is making him drowsy. They got up early to take the boat before sunrise, because Nate wanted to watch it come up over open water, then dropped anchor to swim. 

"If you fall asleep like that, you're going to burn," he hears Nate say, before hands push Brad over into the shade of the awning. "Go down to the stateroom if you want to take a nap."

"Mm, I'll never sleep tonight if I do, and I have to go back to work tomorrow. Vacation can't last forever." He reaches out for Nate still with his eyes closed, an excuse to grope damp skin that leaves Nate laughing as Brad tugs him down onto the padded bench to lie on top of him. 

"You should retire," Nate murmurs, as Brad slides a slow hand up the back of his thigh. 

Brad opens his eyes and Nate's face comes into focus. He's golden-tanned, crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, a lazy smile on his face. There's grey coming in at his temples and on his chest. Brad lifts moves his hand to press the backs of his knuckles against Nate's cheek, feeling the stubble there. Nate kisses his fingers and asks, "Why are you looking at me like that?".

"It's the same way I've always looked at you," Brad says. 

Nate nips lightly at the thin skin of his knuckles. "Yeah," he says, softer than the waves that barely touch the hull of their boat. "Yeah, it is."

**Author's Note:**

> "Lake, why don't you actually write something for all these prompts and increase your GK stories total by 1/3, all in three weeks?" is a thing that absolutely no one said to me and yet. Here we are? I would say that this was fun and we should do it again but my brain feels like someone ran it over with a large truck.


End file.
